


why sleep at  night when you can have an existential crisis instead

by equinnoxious



Series: how the mighty have fallen (in love) [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 15:06:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20010298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/equinnoxious/pseuds/equinnoxious
Summary: Keith struggles to come to terms with what's been happening, but maybe a certain Green Paladin can help keep him grounded.





	why sleep at  night when you can have an existential crisis instead

**Author's Note:**

> i only just found this show a week ago and binged the absolute crap out of it
> 
> now here i am with so many feels i dont know what to do with them all  
> my kids deserved better than what s8 gave them and im sure a lot of other people feel the same 
> 
> this ones for my top otp, kidge  
> i definitely what to write more but im still undecided if it will be part of a bigger story or just a bunch of one-shots so.. enjoy the ride i guess
> 
> no beta, we die like men

Keith found himself roaming the Castle of Lions in the dead of night, taking in all the familiarity that he so desperately missed on the two year journey in the Quantum Abyss. It hadn't meant to be so long, just a quick in and out in a couple of movements, maybe a phoeb tops, but complications arose and he and Krolia had been stuck on the two deca-phoeb voyage.

Had it really been two years? From his perspective, yes. The Quantum Abyss warped space-time in a way that made absolutely no scientific sense, so from everyone else's perspective, he hadn't actually been gone all that long. His uneventful return left him feeling hollow and wondering if the team even missed him as much as he missed them. 

_Of course not,_ he thought a little bitterly. He knew they couldn't possibly have. Logically speaking he understood, but emotionally he was feeling very raw. The whole Shiro incident hadn't helped with that. He absently touched his cheek, his mark, the gift the fake Shiro had given him. He wasn't entirely sure if it was even a scar, as the mark felt just as smooth as the rest of his cheek, but Krolia hadn't confirmed its origin as Galra. Then again, she hadn't exactly denied it, either.

He lost track of where he wandered, completely consumed in his own thoughts. He didn't know if he wanted company or if he wanted to be alone. Having been alone for most of his life, he was certainly used to it, but having only his mother for two years after becoming so entwined with the other Paladin's left him feeling complicated. He wanted to open up to the team, but he felt about as emotionally blocked up as he did when he first met them. 

He rounded a corridor, giving barely a thought to where we was. What he didn't expect was to turn into the Green Lion's hangar. 

The scenery pulled him entirely from his reverie. Why this hanger of all hangars? He could have accepted accidentally ending up in Red's hangar, having previously been Red's pilot. It would have made more sense if he was at Black's, but Green's? He held no connection to Green. 

"Keith?"

He froze upon hearing his name, feeling like he was busted doing something he shouldn't. In all honesty, he kind of was; Green's hanger was for Pidge. He certainly wouldn't appreciate finding out someone had been snooping around Black.

He spotted Pidge down at her Lion's paw, countless tech spread out around her. She made no move to get up, since she seemed to be physically connected with it all; wires sprawled across the floor, various stray wires draped over the claws of the Lion as well as spooling across Pidge's own lap. She pulled the headset that hugged her ears down around her neck and set one of several laptops aside. The glow of the various screens illuminated her functionless glasses and left an eerie sparkle in her eyes.

"Pidge," Keith responded, having the sense to feel a little embarrassed. 

"What are you doing here?" She wasn't accusatory or offended, simply curious and even concerned.

Keith frowned, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "I, uh... I honestly don't know. Sorry, I'll go..." 

"No," Pidge was quick to respond. "It's fine. You came here for a reason, right?" 

She made a small gesture for him to join her. He released a sigh he didn't realise he was holding before joining her on the floor. Well, as close as he could get with all the tech scattered around.

"What are you even doing here?" he couldn't help but ask, unintentionally avoiding her question. 

If she noticed his avoidance, she didn't mention it. "I'm working on some modifications for Green," she explained simply. "The cloaking modification turned out to be really beneficial, and there's a ton more I've been meaning to test out. For starters, I'm trying to reverse-engineer the castle's particle barrier to give the Lion's better defence capabilities, but it's proving to be harder than I first thought. 

"For starters, the amount of energy required to operate the particle barrier already exceeds the energy output of the castle, so I have no idea how it even works. Maybe it has something to do with Allura? I swear, if it works because of magic, I'm going to throw myself into the void of space."

Keith smiled softly as Pidge rambled on about the complexities of the particle barrier and her disdain for magic as a solution. According to her, magic wasn't allowed to be a factor, as it was governed by literally zero laws of physics. She became increasingly animated as she got more excited, going so far as to pull up a laptop to show him visuals of her explanations. 

In that moment, listening to Pidge go off on multiple tangents, Keith realised he definitely did not want to be alone. 

"-but before all that, I should really try engineering the cloaking on the other Lion's, too. Well, actually, I tried once with Red, but man is that Lion stubborn. And it's system is entirely different to Green's, it's so weird! It's like one is Android and the other is Apple, but a lot harder to crack. I have to completely rewrite the cloaking code in order to make it compatible with the other Lion's, which is a lot harder than it sounds since I don't know the language Red speaks. 

"Theoretically, the new cloaking code should work, and I've been running simulations to test that out, but simulations and actual results are like comparing apples with oranges. The language between Green and Red is so different, I'm surprised they even have the same outputs. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the same with the other Lion's. I guess the only way to find out is by uploading the cloaking to one of the Lion's and running diagnostics to see where it hits snags, but that could potentially take quintants and I don't know if Lance could survive that long without Red."

She put down the laptop, giving Keith a soft expression, a slight blush of embarrassment rising on her cheeks. "I realise you didn't come here to listen to me ramble about complex computing systems, and I may have gone a little over the top." She paused for a moment, before asking, "what are you really here for, Keith?"

Keith had gotten comfortable between the claws of Green, leaning across to give Pidge his undivided attention. He frowned at her for bringing the topic back to the start. He wouldn't admit it, but he actually enjoyed her explain the delicate process of modifying her Lion. For a moment, he hadn't been dwelling on the past. 

"Keith," she tried again, somehow softer. Tender. "I've... we've," she stressed the collective term, as if to override the possessive one, "been worried about you. Since you came back from the Quantum Abyss, you've been distant. Are you okay?"

"Are any of us okay?" he blurted, nihilistic. He regretted it as soon as it escaped his mouth, giving Pidge a woeful look of apology. Any verbal apologies died on his tongue when he met her eyes.

She balked at his bluntness, leaning back against Green's paw. She hadn't noticed she'd been leaning forward. "I guess not," she admitted. "But, we're here and we have each other." She observed him with a peculiar look, one he couldn't quite pinpoint. Her expression didn't reflect pity, but a fond sort of concern. "You know we've got your back, right?"

He tried to recall how close the team had gotten before he left to join the Blades, but it felt like such a long time ago. He didn't feel like the same Keith that had left for the voyage to the Quantum Abyss. That Keith was reckless and had an attitude problem, that Keith that would face all the problems the universe threw at him alone.

"I've got your back," she said purposefully, placing a hand on his shoulder. He nearly recoiled at the touch, so unused to physical contact.

"Sorry, Pidge," he finally spoke, voice gruff. "I know you do." He brought his own hand up to pat hers, a gesture of understanding. "I guess this whole..." he paused, searching for the right word, "adventure has affected me more than I care to admit." 

The two shared a heavy silence, acknowledgement to how stressful their lives had become. Pidge broke away first, pulling her hand back to retrieve one of the many laptops surrounding her. Keith watched her curiously as she scooted closer, probably getting more tangled in the all the haphazard cords in the process, using Green's claw to prop the laptop up so both of them could see it.

"This," she pulled up a schematic, "is the Black Lion. Or, what I could get from it." The 3D model of the Lion expanded, separating into differing sections and techniques that they'd discovered over time. Several boxes with endless strings of code and text began scrolling across the screen. 

Keith gave her a dull look. "Pidge, I have no idea what I'm looking at." 

That didn't deter her. "I figured maybe if I talked through the problems I keep encountering, something would... spark? I actually do it a lot, but to myself," she trailed off, embarrassment rising. "If I could just figure out how to crack the cross compatibility with the Lion's, we'd all be better defended."

"Don't the Lion's already have some sort of particle barrier?" Keith mused. "When I found Red the first time, I couldn't get to it because of that."

Pidge nearly jumped with excitement, and probably would have if it weren't for all the tech around her keeping her relatively immobile. "Keith, you are a genius!" she exclaimed, pulling the laptop back to herself. "The Lion's have that barrier when they're idle, but if I can just tap into..." she trailed off, muttering so quietly and incoherently under her breath that Keith couldn't catch what she said anymore.

He watched her fiddle around with the tech, unaware that he was completely mesmerised. Her lips moved as she spoke utter nonsense under her breath, going from one laptop to another. Her eyes darted back and forth, the soft glow of the screens illuminating her glasses. 

She caught Keith staring, flushing a little in embarrassment. "I may have gotten a little excited. Did you want to-"

"No, it's okay," he interrupted, raising a hand to stop her. "Don't stop on my account."

Maybe today he didn't feel like talking about the troubles that plagued his mind, but sitting between the claws of the Green Lion, with Pidge by his side grinning at his approval to continue with solving yet another technical challenge, he felt more at ease than when he entered the hangar.


End file.
